The present invention relates to printing machines, and more particularly to direct ink machines for printing on cassette tape cartridges.
Heretofore, printing on cassette tape cartridges was generally accomplished by preprinting labels and affixing the labels to the cassettes. Printing directly onto cassettes has been generally avoided because of the difficulties involved. Cassette cases are generally made of a thin plastic which tends to bend when a fixed pressure, such as from a print head, is applied. Furthermore, one side of a cassette is open for access to the enclosed tape by a tape player. The cassette opening case depth is increased to accommodate this opening thereby presenting a printing surface which is not flat. The effect of these two structural attributes of cassettes is that printing directly onto cassette generally results in a distorted, smudged and/or unfocused print image.
In more recent times, several machines have been developed to print directly onto cassettes. The machines developed have generally used offset printing processes and/or tapes. Offset printing onto cassettes requires many moving parts and results in complex and costly printing machines.